The Zingara Project

Tag: Poems about Birds

  • Emily Dickinson Duet of Original Poems by Charles Weld

    Emily Dickinson Duet of Original Poems by Charles Weld

    Both poems below contain lines from Emily Dickinson and are about birds. So, a little nod to the “Collect, Remix, Repeat” prompt of April 11, but more in line with the “Not the Kind You Flip” prompt of April 26. I’ve been writing single-rhyme poems with Emily lines for about a year, but the bird subject returned when our spring migrants returned in April and May.

    Duet with Emily about White-throated Sparrows

    They stop in our yard for a week or two
    late April, early May—passing through
    fast on their way north to nest. A few
    blue notes this year, the only clue,
    the minor third repeated, no bird in view—
    a single term of cautious melody—
    sounding tired after weeks of migratory
    travel from Georgia, Florida—some southern vicinity.
    Yankee listeners like Emily and family
    heard the bird say, “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody,”
    a moniker to tame strangeness with familiarity,
    and ease it into a place among the certainties.
    Unordered flux, bordering the realm of taboo,
    called out for intervention. Measure, name, subdue.
    Duet with Emily at Dawn

    Birds, a Summer morning Before the Quick of Day
    start in our yard with robins who arpeggio away
    in the darkness before a cardinal joins the melee.
    An alarm sounds from a jay
    or crow—scolds, both wanting their say.
    Then every bird is bold to go on record and forté
    amps up to fortissimo in a wild array
    of tunings. By 7—I’m surprised—the heyday
    is over. Dawn’s promise begins to decay.
    The sun is up, and things weigh
    in, each with its own gravity. Some days I say yea,
    some nay to unremitting Hope—active always
    Yet never wearing out—words from the sensei
    who studied life deeply, but stayed outside its fray.

    Charles Weld’s poems have been collected in two chapbooks, Country I Would Settle In (Pudding House, 2004) and Who Cooks For You? (Kattywompus, 2012.) A full-length collection, Seringo, was published by Kelsay Books in 2023. A partially-retired administrator for a non-profit agency serving the mental health needs of children and youth, he lives in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.

  • Bird, tired bird by Sue Blaustein

             Here’s a gull
missing a chunk of itself.
Not just downy feathers, no…
Long feathers are gone,
        and maybe flesh.
 
Bird, tired bird…
Limping in the street alone,
        using energy
        you can’t spare –
        you bend
and open your beak
to a twig
that has to be food
         but isn’t.
 
I’m sure you can’t fly…you can barely
         walk. Juvenile
plumage, but you won’t grow up.
         Something
         happened.
 
         Juvenile – you’re
limping like an ancient –
         past two cases
of spent bottle rockets.
In deep summer, sweet summer.
The 5th of July.
 

    Sue Blaustein is the author of In the Field, Autobiography of an Inspector. Her publication credits and bio can be found at http://www.sueblaustein.com. Sue retired from the Milwaukee Health Department in 2016, and is an active volunteer. She blogs for Ex Fabula (“Connecting Milwaukee Through Real Stories”), serves as an interviewer/writer for the “My Life My Story” program at the Zablocki VA Medical Center, and chases insects at the Milwaukee Urban Ecology Center.